Robert Scheer: You’re on Your Own, Kids

[marmar]

from truthdig:



You’re on Your Own, Kids

Posted on Apr 12, 2012
By Robert Scheer


Who will speak for the rights of the unborn now that Rick Santorum is gone from the race? Let me give it a whirl from the perspective of one whose own unwed mother had several abortions before yours truly was permitted to emerge.

My arrival came during the U.S. economy’s previous great crash, back in 1936. My father, who was already supporting an earlier family with two teenage children, had every intention of providing well for me, but he was laid off that very day and informed my mother of the unhappy fact within moments of setting eyes on me in a Bronx hospital. My father held on to part-time jobs in garment industry sweatshops (where my mother, too, worked), but it would be four years before he had a full-time paycheck again. He stood by both families during that dark period, seizing every opportunity to work, mostly in government-sponsored employment. And yes, we lived in part on government welfare—or home relief, as it was then called. All of which made President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the New Deal he fashioned to save tens of millions of impoverished folks just like us throughout the country, objects of veneration.

So why am I bringing all this ancient history up now? Because I was dumbfounded by a headline Saturday in The New York Times that reminded me of how far we have gone wrong: “Welfare Limits Left Poor Adrift as Recession Hit.” And by “we” I mean not only the heartless Republicans who love the fetus and then shun the child but also the “progressives” who dare not use the word “liberal” because concern for the poor conflicts with the opportunism that defines their politics.

The death of American liberalism as a significant moral force can be traced to the point in 1996 when President Bill Clinton signed legislation that effectively ended the main federal anti-poverty program and turned the fate of welfare recipients, 70 percent of whom were children, over to the tender mercies of the states. With a stroke of the pen, Clinton eliminated what remained of New Deal-era compassion for the poor and codified into law the “tough love” callousness that his Republican allies in the Congress, led by Newt Gingrich, had long embraced. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/youre_on_your_own_kids_20120412/

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[fasttense]

2. Welfare Reform and the end of regulations on banks were 2 of Clinton's

triangulations. He did NOT become any more liberal after he was re-elected. In fact, that "free" market deregulation of banks was done on his 2nd term and can be traced directly to the 2nd RepubliCON Great Depression. But of course Clinton did not do it all alone. He was just giving the RepubliCONS what they wanted.

For those who think Obama will finally become liberal when he gets re-elected, take a look at Clinton after his reelection. He did NOT become more liberal.

Obama is using Clinton's triangulation method to the extreme. In fact for every one liberal thing he does, he does 2 very RepubliCON things.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. Yeah, maybe you're right.

In fact, most likely you're right.

But I'm gonna vote for Obama anyway.

[zeemike]

6. Do we have any other choice?

And that is how triangulation works.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. I see electing O as a delaying strategy--

things will deteriorate a little less rapidly under a President who is rational (if excessively opportunistic & pragmatic) as opposed to one who is totally driven by the unholy conservative combination of psychopathic leadership and lunatic followers.

[infidel dog]

9. Remarkably concise analysis, JR. What a sad state of affairs!

[jamesatemple]

4. So, who you gonna vote for?

I wanted a lot more from this President but I'm thankful for some of the things he got enacted. Given our Presidential choices, I'll vote for Obama again and try to encourage others to do so as well. Are you planning to sit this election out and suggest that others do the same?

[undergroundpanther]

10. Clinton had followers of

leo strauss,that sickening bastard's bull shit 'philosophy' so beloved by neo cons.
I wondered to myself why he would put these ethically stunted people in his cabinet,and after his impeachment,why he hung around the very people who made his private life such a stupid national obsession. I also wonder why Obama kept some bush criminals in the white house.WTF.

I think Clinton was a 5th column neocon in a donkey suit.What he did to the poor is all the proof you need to see how fake in his compassion he was and his lying about his beliefs and neocon tendencies.Clinton was a two faced asshole.

[Solly Mack]

5. k/r

"Well, glory be, hope is on the rise. A recent and well-documented Indiana University study concludes that the number of Americans living beneath the poverty line has risen 27 percent during the recession, leaving 46 million former fetuses living large on a new hope diet. "

[blackspade]

8. Yes